It’s a travesty that the bootlickers in the mainstream media are so reliable that Democrats are completely comfortable making outrageously dishonest statements and knowing they will never be called on them.
I’m not even paying attention to the news that much this weekend and I caught two whoppers.
First, Obama on the J.P. Morgan prop trading disaster:
We found out that a big mistake at one of our biggest banks resulted in a $2 billion loss [actually it was $3 billion and counting, but let's not quibble]. While that bank can handle a loss of that size, other banks may not have been able to. And without Wall Street reform, we could have found ourselves with the taxpayers once again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes.
Excuse me? J.P. Morgan lost billions in prop trading after Dodd-Frank and that’s evidence that Dodd-Frank is working? What kind of psychotic logic is that? The problem in 2008 was that giant, Too Big To Fail banks were allowed to run with insane levels of leverage and threatened to destroy the the economy if they didn’t get bailed out. None of that was fixed by Dodd-Frank. In fact, the TBTF banks have all grown even bigger since!
Why have the TBTF banks been allowed to get even bigger? Let’s go to the tape: Obama 2008 campaign contributions.
Funny how that works!
Let’s also not forget that Obama picked for Treasury Secretary Timmy “the Tax Cheat” Geithner, who was head of the New York Fed, and responsible for regulating all the Wall Street banks when they made their over-leveraged bad bets and blew up. Failure deserves its rewards!
And secondly, Nancy Pelosi:
Last year, just the threat of not lifting the debt ceiling caused us to — our credit rating to be lowered. This is not a responsible, mature, sensible place for us to go.
That is a blatant lie. Boehner folded and raised the debt ceiling with no real near-term cuts or a path to fiscal sustainability on August 2. Standard and Poor’s downgraded the U.S. on August 5 because Boehner caved in, not because he had earlier held out. S&P’s statement:
The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.
The worst thing that Boehner could do now, from the rating agencies’ (and any sane person’s) perspective would be to cave in again and raise the debt ceiling without getting structural reform. The problem isn’t the debt ceiling; it’s the debt!
1) Wall Street is mostly giving to Romney, in an unprecedented amount and, I think, percentage.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/03/wall-streets-huge-bet-on-romney.html
2) By your own standard, you are lying. I actually suspect you just never read the statement and like to accuse people of lying. Here is the whole paragraph.
“We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.”
Or what about this paragraph?
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.
Read the whole thing, and it is clear that the brinksmanship was a major, if not the major concern.
Steve
Steve,
Brinksmanship is a tactic, and a bipartisan one at that.
The point is that the two parties are very far apart on a plan for a path fiscal sustainability. Caving in and raising the debt ceiling with no path to sustainability would NOT be a positive step in the ratings agencies’, or any sane person’s, eyes.
Read it again, and it’s clear that the brinksmanship is a symptom of the underlying gulf between the parties and the reckless fiscal path we remain on. And that is the concern of the ratings agencies.
I am not “lying” to state the clear and plain truth as it is, and Nancy Pelosi is indeed lying to claim the opposite.
As for Romney, what exactly was his role in Dodd-Frank and what does that have to do with anything?
W.C.
IOW, you dont care what S&P said. They say quite explicitly, more than once, that it is the way the debt crisis was handled, not the amount of debt, that caused the downgrade.
“We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. ”
Romney? You imply that Obama is owned by the banks. Electing Romney puts someone in office even more obligated to the banks. Elections are never about the perfect choice, just the lesser of two evils.
Steve
IOW, you are having reading comprehension difficulty.
As you quote, “the prolonged controversy … and the related fiscal policy debate INDICATE THAT FURTHER NEAR-TERM PROGRESS CONTAINING THE GROWTH IN PUBLIC SPENDING, ESPECIALLY ON ENTITLEMENTS, OR ON REACHING AN AGREEMENT ON RAISING REVENUES IS LESS LIKELY THAN WE PREVIOUSLY ASSUMED…”
To paraphrase, the controversy and debate was an indication to S&P that the parties were far apart and we would not get the fiscal reform agreement necessary to maintain the AAA rating. S&P made it abundantly clear that creditworthiness is all about fundamental reforms, and not about the political squabble that had ended a few days earlier.
How any sentient human being can read this as “the Republicans should have raised the debt ceiling unconditionally and S&P would have been happy with that” is beyond me.
“They say quite explicitly…the way the debt crisis was handled, not the amount of debt, that caused the downgrade.” (Steve)
.
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Actually, that’s NOT what S&P nor anyone said.
America’s debt was too high at $10 Trillion…..moreover this administration promised to LOWER the debt. I don’t believe they lied on that point….they’ve tried and failed due largely to incompetent (Keynesian) economic policies.
That can’t be done by increasing taxes, since tax increases (except increases on the bottom 70%) retard economic growth.
The way forward is painful. It will require some major entitlement cuts, targeted tax hikes (the bulk of the under-taxed money is found among that bottom 70%) and most vitally large-scale economic (that’s private sector) growth, which can ONLY be triggered by giving huge incentives to businesses/job creators.
You are right Steve, in noting that the Democratic Party is MORE Corporatist (MORE beholden to the likes of BP & Goldman Sachs…you’re also right that BOTH those entities give more to the Dems – upwards of 80% of their political contributions to Democrats) than is the GOP….BUT not by much!
Fact is BOTH major Parties are and have been decidedly Corporatist (supporting a Business/Government partnership) for a very long time. What’s more, probably upwards of 70% of the American people are diehard Corporatists as well, whether they know it or acknowledge it or not. After all people vote FOR what they want. People COULD HAVE voted 3rd party on numerous occasions and didn’t.
It’s NOT “unfair” that Corporatism has taken control of the 2 major Parties…the people STILL have some sort of choice.